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PML-N leader retired Captain Muhammad Safdar -- who along with his wife Maryam Nawaz Sharif are currently facing corruption charges in the National Accountability Bureau's court -- on Tuesday launched into a virulent tirade against Pakistan's persecuted Ahmadi community while speaking in the National Assembly. He accused the faith group of acting against the country's interests and called for action against its members.

Safdar, who is former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's son-in-law, also criticised the renaming of Quaid-i-Azam University's (QAU) physics centre after Professor Dr Abdus Salam, the country's first Nobel laureate — the grounds for the lawmaker's objections being the scientist's Ahmadi faith.

The renaming of the physics centre had been approved in December 2016 by Nawaz Sharif, who had also approved a grant for five annual fellowships for Pakistani PhD students. This programme is called the Professor Abdus Salam Fellowship.Nuclear physicist Abdus Salam hailed from the Ahmadi community, whose members constitute a minority in Pakistan. Its members have faced persecution and were declared non-Muslims in Pakistan through a constitutional amendment in 1974.

"These people [Ahmadis] are a threat to this country, its Constitution and ideology. This situation is heading towards a dangerous point," said Safdar in his diatribe against the community.

Pakistan was created with an ideology to protect the finality of Prophethood [Khatm-i-Naboowat] so Islam is practised here, the PML-N leader said.